Wednesday, April 25, 2012

Can Organic Grass Fed Beef & Dairy Actually Prevent Cancer?

Omega-3s are formed in the chloroplasts of green leaves and algae. Sixty percent of the fatty acids in grass are omega-3s. When cattle are taken off omega-3 rich grass and shipped to a feedlot to be fattened on omega-3 poor grain, they begin losing their store of this beneficial fat. Each day that an animal spends in the feedlot, its supply of omega-3s is diminished.

Meat from grass-fed animals has two to four times more omega-3 fatty acids than meat from grain- fed animals. Omega-3s are called "good fats" because they play a vital role in every cell and system in your body. For example, of all the fats, they are the most heart-friendly. People who have ample amounts of omega-3s in their diet are less likely to have high blood pressure or an irregular heartbeat. Omega-3s are essential for your brain as well. People with a diet rich in omega-3s are less likely to suffer from depression, schizophrenia, attention deficit disorder (hyperactivity), or Alzheimer's disease.

A benefit of omega-3s is that they may reduce your risk of cancer. In animal studies, these essential fats have slowed the growth of a wide array of cancers and also kept them from spreading.

Meat and dairy products from grass-fed ruminants are the richest known source of another type of good fat called "conjugated linoleic acid" or CLA. When ruminants are raised on fresh pasture alone, their products contain from three to five times more CLA than products from animals fed conventional diets.

CLA may be one of our most potent defenses against cancer. In laboratory animals, a very small percentage of CLA, a mere 0.1 percent of total calories, greatly reduced tumor growth. There is new evidence that CLA may also reduce cancer risk in humans. In a Finnish study, women who had the highest levels of CLA in their diet, had a 60 percent lower risk of breast cancer than those with the lowest levels. Switching from grain-fed to grassfed meat and dairy products places women in this lowest risk category. - Eat Wild

The British research showed that healthy volunteers who ate grass-fed meat increased their blood levels of omega-3 fatty acids and decreased their level of pro-inflammatory omega-6 fatty acids. These changes are linked with a lower risk of a host of disorders, including cancer, cardiovascular disease, depression, and inflammatory disease. Interestingly, volunteers who consumed conventional, grain-fed meat ended up with lower levels of omega-3s and higher levels of omega-6s than they had at the beginning of the study, suggesting that eating conventional meat had been detrimental to their health. - British Journal Of Nutrition

The meat and dairy products of animals raised on pasture are higher in omega-3s than animals raised in factory farms. The most abundant omega-3 in pastured products is called “alpha-linoleic acid” or ALA. A study of breast cancer survivors revealed that the women with the most ALA in their tissues---and therefore the most ALA in their diets, were one fourth as likely to have their cancers return as women with the least amount. - British Journal Of Cancer

Omega-6 fatty acids are essential for health, but the amount consumed by most Americans increases the risk of obesity, diabetes, inflammatory diseases, and cancer. Omega-6s are most abundant in vegetable oils such as corn oil, safflower oil, and cottonseed oils. (Olive oil is low in omega- 6 fatty acids.) Few people realize that grain-fed animals are also a major source of omega-6s. Meat and dairy products from animals fed a high-grain diet, which is the typical feedlot diet, have up to ten times more omega-6s than products from animals raised on their natural diet of pasture. - Journal of Lipid Research

A high ratio of omega-6 to omega-3 fatty acids has been linked with an increased risk of cancer, cardiovascular disease, allergies, depression, obesity, and auto-immune disorders. - The Omega Diet

Two new European studies link a diet high in CLA with a lower risk of breast cancer. In Finland, researchers measured CLA levels in the serum of women with and without breast cancer. Those women with the most CLA had a significantly lower risk of the disease. Meanwhile, French researchers measured CLA levels in the breast tissues of 360 women. Once again, the women with the most CLA had the lowest risk of cancer. In fact, the women with the most CLA had a staggering 74% lower risk of breast cancer than the women with the least CLA.

To see whether the CLA that occurs naturally in cow's milk has similar cancer-fighting properties, researchers recently compared the two. They fed one group of rats butter that was high in CLA and fed another group of rats an equivalent amount of synthetic CLA. As one would expect, the natural CLA proved to be just as effective in blocking tumor growth as the man-made variety. (In both cases, cancer yield was reduced by about 50 percent.) However, the high CLA butter had an added benefit: the rats eating the butter accumulated even more CLA in their tissues than the rats fed an equivalent amount of synthetic CLA. The reason? Researchers believe that the rats were converting another "good" fat found in the butter, trans-vaccenic acid or TVA, into CLA, giving them a second helping of this cancer-fighting fat. - Eat Wild

There are 16 different types of CLA, each with a slightly different molecular shape. New research reveals that each type of CLA has a different set of benefits. The type of CLA most abundant in meat and dairy products (referred to by chemists as "cis-9, trans-11, CLA") appears to be the champion cancer fighter. Compared with another common type of CLA (trans 10, cis 12, CLA) it was a third more effective in blocking the growth of human cancer cells. (78% versus 58% reduction) - Special Supplement to Inform

Organic, grass-fed meat that is humanely raised and butchered is really the only type of meat worth eating, if you want to maintain your good health. - Dr. Mercola